Goes to where? The destination of Latin American and Caribbean Science

Abstract

The limited presence of journals from peripheral countries among the titles indexed on international bases and the publication of works by scientists from these countries in core titles are relevant to analyzes scientific production indexed in international databases. This research studies the articles published by researchers from Latin America and the Caribbean, in a universe representative from the global science, the journals indexed in internationally renowned databases, represented by the Web of Science. The objective is to analyze the geographical dispersion of scientific production in Latin American and Caribbean countries indexed in the base. The method is quantitative and collects data in WoS from 2014, 2015, and 2016. The research universe is 251,312 articles linked to authorship in institutions in Latin American and Caribbean countries. The destination of 75.77% of scientific production is journals with publishers in Europe and North America. Only 24.23% of the articles remain in titles published in the region. There is a remarkable difference among the countries and the knowledge areas; only Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, and Cuba have more than 20% of the articles published in their titles with a media of 15% in the region.  Arts & Humanities and Social Sciences are the areas with more articles published in their countries while Technology and Physical Sciences published more than 90% in other countries' titles.

Keywords: Scientific communication. Geography of science. Destinations of scientific production. Latin America and the Caribbean.